


Ashes of Eden

by uninspired15



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Eating Disorders, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, May Parker (Spider-Man) Dies, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker Lives, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Protective Tony Stark, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Tags May Change, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 16:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22459204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uninspired15/pseuds/uninspired15
Summary: They vanished as if they’d never existed in the first place, flesh and bone and blood all identical ashes fluttering away in Titan’s light breeze, their expressions forever paused on knowing but not feeling. Maybe not believing. Tony sure as hell couldn’t believe it.Just like that. Simple. Easy. Four lives – no, fuck,trillionsof lives – gone in the time it took him to exhale a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Gone in one literal snap of Thanos’s fingers.“Mister Stark?”And that –thatwas where Tony drew the fucking line.Like hell was Steroid Barney going to take away his kid.
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 24
Kudos: 164





	1. will the faithful be rewarded when we come to the end?

They vanished as if they’d never existed in the first place, flesh and bone and blood all identical ashes fluttering away in Titan’s light breeze, their expressions forever paused on knowing but not feeling. Maybe not believing. Tony sure as hell couldn’t believe it.

Just like that. Simple. Easy. Four lives – no, fuck, _trillions_ of lives – gone in the time it took him to exhale a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Gone in one literal snap of Thanos’s fingers.

“Mister Stark?”

And that – _that_ was where Tony drew the fucking line.

Like hell was Steroid Barney going to take away his kid.

“You’re alright,” Tony said numbly, and with a wave of utter relief that made his knees feel weak, he saw the kid moving toward him, whole and solid and not ashy at all. His voice shook almost as much as his protégé’s entire body. “C’mere, Pete. You’re okay.”

Peter didn’t need to be told twice. He collapsed against Tony, hands grappling like they were one another’s only lifelines to what was left of humanity (because they _were_ ), breath gasping with what had to be the beginnings of a panic attack. Tony wrapped his arms around the kid and squeezed tight, just as terrified as Peter seemed to be that one of them might disappear at any moment.

A minute passed, then another, and then a third. Peter’s trembling form was still pressed against his chest, traumatized but safe.

“He did it,” Nebula said, like they didn’t already know. She sat heavily.

Tony ignored her. “Breathe, kid. I’ve got you.”

“I-I’m not–“ Peter gasped. “I _can’t_ –“

“You can, Pete. You have to. We need to get home and find a way to fix this.”

He waited, calm and patient, while the kid made a patch job of pulling himself together. He wasn’t exactly known for being calm or patient, but this was an exception.

Peter was always an exception – and thank _fuck_ for that.

Tony closed his eyes, buried his face in Peter’s hair, and breathed deep.

He’d never been so grateful for the scent of dirt and sweat.

* * *

Aboard the ship, Tony kept both teenager and android – as well as himself – strictly focused on the task at hand: mechanical repairs. This was mostly because he didn’t really want to starve to death on Thanos’s ghost town of a planet, and partially because he was fairly certain both he and Peter were on the verge of their own respective mental breakdowns, and call him crazy, but bonding via simultaneous panic attacks? That just didn’t sound like fun.

The repairs were a relative success, depending on how you looked at it.

As far as getting home went…well, they wouldn’t be. Not without a damn miracle. They’d earned themselves _maybe_ forty-eight hours of flight time, if that. Without the warp drive, Nebula calculated that forty-eight hours wouldn’t get them even a tenth of the way to Earth.

As far as staving off panic attacks went, the repairs were an abject failure. Peter lost it an hour in, shaking and sobbing all over again and refusing to look Tony in the eyes, this time with bonus dry heaving.

So, actually, the repairs weren’t much of a success at all – barely even a relative one. Tony’s only comfort was that he’d die in the cold, uncaring embrace of outer space rather than the warmth of Thanos’s own home.

That comfort was completely cancelled out by the fact that Peter would be dying right alongside him.

The weight of that cruel reality pressed heavy on his shoulders as he pulled the kid toward his chest, tucked a head of matted curls beneath his chin, and fought off his own wave of emotion.

“You’re gonna be fine, kid,” Tony said hoarsely.

Peter was more than smart enough to know that wasn’t true, but that was okay. Tony wasn’t lying to Peter.

He was lying to himself.

* * *

“When I drift off, it’ll be like every night lately: I’m fine. Totally fine. And I dream about you…because it’s always you.”

Tony shut his helmet off for the last time and swallowed thickly, almost choking around the lie he’d just told.

_I’m fine. Totally fine._

He most certainly was not.

It wasn’t even his own impending demise, only a few hours away now, that he feared. He’d been evading certain death for over a decade. This day was long overdue.

For him, at least, it was long overdue.

For the sickly teenager curled up on the floor beside him, Tony’s jacket wrapped around his shoulders and still shivering anyway, it was unbelievably premature. He was the one Tony couldn’t help but mourn, hard as he’d been trying not to think about it at all.

Peter Parker was a walking culmination of every good thing the human race had to offer and then some. He was so full of potential, so full of _life._

Or, rather, he _had_ been full of life.

Tony didn’t even attempt to suppress a shudder, allowing it to roll through his shoulders as he looked over Peter’s pitifully frail body. The rations on board weren’t calorific enough to meet the nutritional needs of a metabolically enhanced, growing teenage boy, but self-sacrificial and infuriating as ever, Peter had refused to eat more, knowing it would mean leaving Tony with less. Many a heated, almost-fight had been spent over the past twenty odd days trying to explain to the kid that he needed four times the food Tony did, therefore he should take as much. Tony could last weeks longer than him on the same rations. Splitting them evenly was not logical.

Peter didn’t see it that way. And now, what had once been a fit and healthy body, full of youth and strength, was a pale and withering form, ribcage and spine peeking through, hands perpetually cold. It made Tony irrationally angry (though it wasn’t really all that irrational, was it, because it wouldn’t be nearly so dire a situation if Peter had just _taken the goddamn food_ –)

–but Tony was done being angry. He’d decided so nearly twenty hours before, when an oxygen alert reminded him they only had a day left to live and the reality of it had finally, truly sunk in. He’d watched Peter fall asleep just before he recorded his last message to Pepper, heart heavy with the knowledge that he’d never see the kid’s eyes open again. He’d savored those last few seconds of Peter’s eyelids fluttering in that childish way they always did when he slipped into the depths of sleep.

He didn’t want his last feelings toward the kid to be those of bitterness and resentment, and he didn’t want Peter to die thinking Tony resented him for his sacrifice. It was, after all, a sacrifice born of love. They both knew Tony would have made the same choice.

And, besides: in the end, it didn’t matter who had eaten how many rations. Peter’s emaciated body and failing health were irrelevant. They were both going to die.

Hard as he’d been fighting that truth, Tony suddenly found it much easier to accept as he lay on the cold, hard ground, face mere inches from the kid’s, his own arm a makeshift pillow beneath his head. He shakily brushed overgrown curls out of Peter’s face one last time.

“Sweet dreams, kid,” Tony whispered, and closed his eyes to go and look for Pepper.

He had a promise to keep.

* * *

Sometime after he fell asleep – was it a minute later or two hours? Did they have an hour of oxygen left or thirty seconds? Tony didn’t know, and fuck, that _scared_ him – the kid had a hand on his shoulder and was shaking him awake.

“Mister Stark!” Peter whispered urgently. “Wake up!”

He wanted to refuse and insist that Peter go back to sleep immediately (they agreed to _sleep_ through their deaths, goddamn it, there was no reason to put themselves through this) but he couldn’t quite bring himself to deny the kid’s last request.

Slowly, hesitantly, Tony opened his eyes. He expected to see Peter staring right back at him. Instead, the kid craned his neck awkwardly to look out the viewport. His eyes were wide with uncertainty and reflected…

… _light?_

Light. Glowing light. A large, intergalactic, glowing light, moving toward their ship. Now he was gawking out the viewport, too. If he believed in angels, he might have pissed himself.

They both lay there, exhausted and silent, waiting to meet their fate. Tony took Peter’s hand in his own and turned it over, pressing two fingers to the kid’s wrist to feel his heartbeat – a pointlessly indulgent comfort.

Out of the glowing light, Tony could vaguely make out a humanoid silhouette.

Out of the silhouette came a woman’s face.

She smirked.

* * *

“Holy shit.”

Steve’s words were less like speech and more like an exhale. His hurried footsteps suddenly slowed to a snail’s pace as he got close, eyes drinking in the sight, like he needed a moment to process.

Tony had no fucking patience for it.

“The kid.” He meant to say this with authority – they were all standing on _his_ property, after all – but it came out as more of a gasp and/or groan. “Get…get the kid to medical. Now. _Please_.”

The ‘please’ was hard to force out, but his kid needed _help_ and Steve was just standing there, gaping. At Tony’s urgent tone, he jumped back into action.

Peter, only half-conscious against Tony’s shoulder and certainly in no shape to be walking without assistance, groaned in protest when firm but gentle hands gripped him. His eyelids fluttered and he weakly batted at Steve’s hands, to no avail.

“ _No_ ,” Peter moaned. “T’ny. Stay.”

Tony winced. As much as he wanted to wrap the kid up in his arms and never let go, basking in the knowledge that he was safe safe _safe_ …he wasn’t in the greatest shape himself. If he didn’t pass Peter’s (too light, too thin) weight onto somebody else soon, they’d both end up on the ground.

“It’s just Cap, Pete,” Tony murmured, eyes locked on Peter to avoid Steve’s sympathetic, knowing gaze. “You can trust him. Same side, right?”

“Stay,” Peter said again, even as Steve lifted him bridal style. His head lolled weakly against Cap’s chest, and he looked at Tony through slitted, glassy eyes. “ _Stay_.”

“Get him to medical,” Tony said to Steve, who nodded solemnly, and then to Peter, “Let them take care of you, kiddo. I’ll be there in just a minute.”

He actually intended to keep that promise. God knew he could use some medical attention himself. But first, he needed to find–

“Oh my God.”

Tony practically melted into her arms, a wave of emotion he’d been pushing down ever since the Snap bursting through the floodgates all at once. “ _Pep_.”

She kissed him, deep and scared and proud, making no mention of his tears except subtly clearing them away with her thumbs.

Holy _fuck,_ it felt good to be home.

* * *

The whole ‘felt good to be home’ thing lasted approximately five minutes.

It ended somewhere between collapsing as Pepper helped him to the medical bay and learning that the others were off to find Barney and, for some stupid reason, ripping the reactor out of his chest meant he wasn’t allowed to go.

“You’re in no shape to go hunting down Thanos,” Pepper told him firmly, leaving no room for argument. “And besides…”

She glanced over her shoulder. Tony didn’t have to follow her gaze to know exactly what she was looking at but he did, anyway, just to remind himself for the hundredth time that Peter was alive and…not _well_ , but at least well on his way to recovery. The feeding tube down his throat looked terrifying, but the steady rise and fall of his chest made the sight a little easier to stomach.

“Yeah,” he said roughly. “I know.”

He still wanted to go and beat some purple dinosaur ass – but Pepper was right. He wouldn’t have been able to leave Peter even if he tried. He needed to be there, to watch his vitals, to ensure nobody else tried to hurt him. God knew Peter was in no state to defend himself from any unexpected attacks.

His old therapist would have called this fear that somebody might deliberately target his loved ones while they were down ‘paranoia.’ Tony envied her naivety.

Needed though he knew his presence was, he still couldn’t help but feel lazy for lying in a medical bed while everyone else went out into battle. He needed something, _anything_ , productive to do, just to take his mind off the fact that he wasn’t really doing anything at all. As he lay there, holding Pepper’s hand, watching Peter breathe, it suddenly struck him.

Not that it would even be necessary – because it wouldn’t, because the team was going to find Thanos and get the stones and reverse the Snap, and then all of this would be irrelevant – but Tony felt like somebody should try and track down May Parker.

To put it bluntly: somebody should find out whether or not she’d been vanished.

If she hadn’t, she was no doubt already deep in mourning, certain that over three weeks without hearing from Peter meant he had been reduced to ash. Somebody should let her know he was okay(ish).

If she had…if she _had_ –

–then it was irrelevant. Because they were _going_ to reverse the Snap, and Peter was _going_ to have his aunt back either way, and everything was going to be _fine._

Everything was fine.

* * *

“Tony. You have to tell him.”

“Do I, though?” Tony croaked as he lifted his face from his hands, voice full of a joking sarcasm even though absolutely nothing about their situation was funny. “Can’t we just…keep him sedated for a few more days? Maybe–“

“Tony.”

Apparently, Pepper was not in the mood for jokes. Tony actually wasn’t, either. Shitty coping mechanisms prevailed.

“I know.” He cleared his throat and ran a hand wearily down his unshaven face. “Yeah. _Shit_. Yeah, I know.”

First he found out May was among the vanished, then he was informed that the stones had been destroyed and half of all life in the universe was gone for good – and now he had to _tell the kid?_

His life sucked. It really, truly did.

But not as much as he knew Peter’s was about to.

Tony glanced over his shoulders, ensuring they were still the room’s only three occupants. Something told him Peter would not appreciate an audience for the conversation they were about to have. He winced as he leaned forward in his chair – he technically wasn’t even supposed to be out of his own bed yet, per Bruce’s prescription of rest and recuperation, but Pepper had given him a pass to complete this unfortunate duty – and shook the kid’s shoulder.

“Pete,” he murmured, hand moving to comb through the kid’s hair as he began to stir. “Underoos. Wakey wakey, kid.”

Peter opened his eyes and holy fuck, he had to be _trying_ to break Tony’s heart, because–

“M’ster St’rk,” Peter said sleepily, eyes alight and a soft smile on his face. “They get ‘im?”

 _Fuck_. Shit. He really was just a child, wasn’t he? That optimism was so bright, Tony was actually having difficulty existing in the same room as it. Where were his sunglasses when he needed them?

He swallowed hard. “They…no, buddy. I mean, _yes_ , but – no.”

Peter’s smile melted away. Tony regretted that immensely.

“What do you mean?”

The kid moved as if to sit up. Tony pushed him gently back onto the pillows, trying not to flinch at the far too prominent collarbone beneath his hand or the sight of those gaunt hallows beneath Peter’s cheekbones, exaggerated by his frown.

“ _Shhh,_ ” Tony said. “Relax. You need to stay in bed.”

“Mister Stark – what happened? What’s–“

“He destroyed the stones.”

The room fell deathly silent. Tony watched what he considered to be a morbid sight: what little innocence Peter had left in him was drained in the span of a few seconds, his eyes growing mature and cold – the eyes of somebody who’d seen too much.

The eyes of an Avenger.

Fuck.

“He what?” Peter said, monotone, _numb_.

“Thanos destoyed the stones two days ago. And Thor sliced his big, pruny head off. He’s gone, but so’s his little collection. We can’t…we can’t undo the Snap.”

Peter’s eyes grew wide and wet. Tony felt a sudden urge to wipe the budding tears with his thumbs, but the kid turned away and blinked them back, suddenly looking ten years older.

“All those people…”

Oh, God. “Yeah, buddy. I know.”

Tony sat there, still and patient, waiting for it to hit like he knew it would.

The kid’s head snapped back toward him, panic overtaking the sorrow. “Mister Stark. Aunt May, she’s – can I call her? I – I need to make sure…”

There it was.

Tony’s words burned his throat and mouth like straight acid, but he still let them flow slowly, deliberately, trying to soften the blow in whatever way he could.

“Actually,” he said, “I already looked for her name on the UN’s list of the vanished.”

“And?”

Tony froze, mouth open. Peter’s crazed, hopeful eyes felt like daggers in his soul. “She…Peter. I’m so sorry.”

All the kid’s oxygen left him in one big gust, like his lungs were popped balloons. He shook his head.

“No,” he said, emotionless, eyes boring into Tony’s. “No. They’re wrong.”

Tony held his gaze. He wouldn’t look away now, wouldn’t leave the kid alone and grappling for a lifeline in the deep end. “Buddy. We’ve been gone for almost a month. They’ve had a lot of time to make corrections–“

“Well, apparently they have one more correction to make–“

“She hasn’t called, Peter. Not my personal cell, not yours, not Happy’s. Not Stark Industries. None of the Avengers.”

“She doesn’t _have_ any other Avenger’s number.”

That was a stretch, and they both knew it. Tony could see the kid’s metaphorical, protective wall of denial trembling. Fucking sucked that he was the one who had to tear it down.

“You think that would have stopped her?” He asked with a sad, wistful almost-smile.

And Tony suspected it was this – the use of past tense, the _would have_ , the reminder of May’s stubbornness to the point of detriment – that did Peter in. He rolled over and buried his face in the pillows. His shoulders shook silently.

Pepper, who’d been a mere observer thus far, elbowed Tony and gave him a firm, knowing look, even though her own eyes were glistening. Tony took the hint.

“Pete,” he said softly, and placed a hand on the kid’s bony back. “Do you need–“

Peter threw his hand off with such strength that Tony was jolted by the reminder of his enhancements. Even malnourished and sick, he could beat Tony in a fistfight any day.

“Get out,” Peter said without looking at him. His voice trembled with something that was not grief. “Get _out._ ”

Pepper stepped in as Tony froze. “Peter, sweetheart–“

“ _Get out!_ ”

This time, the command was a shout, punctuated by Peter grasping the lamp from his side table and shattering it against the opposite wall. It sailed two inches above Tony’s head. Whether or not he was the intended target, there was no telling.

Tony had been in the kid’s shoes enough times to know what he needed. He masked a grimace of pain as he stood.

“Alright,” he said simply. “Just let F.R.I.D.A.Y. know if you need us.”

Pepper gave him her patent-pending Look, then glanced very pointedly at Tony’s own medical bed. He met her gaze with a clenched jaw and pleading eyes. After several seconds, Pepper stood, too.

“We’ll be right outside,” she added, wrapping an arm around Tony’s back to help him out.

Peter didn’t spare them so much as a glance.

Tony swallowed hard. Pepper’s gentle hand on his arm was only a slight comfort as he limped out of the medical bay.

He mumbled beneath his breath, because it was well worth repeating:

“ _Fuck_.”


	2. will i miss the final warning from the lie that i have lived?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all so much for your kudos and comments on the first chapter, i really appreciate your support!
> 
> EDIT: just wanted to let you guys know that i've decided on an update schedule for this fic - it will be updated on Saturdays!

Aboard that barely functioning spaceship for twenty-three and a half days, Peter had felt a constant, existential sense of hunger gnawing at his insides; a bitter cold that cut down to his bones and which Tony’s jacket barely made a dent in. He felt vulnerable, clinging mentally (and, sometimes, physically) to Tony in hopes of being protected from something that had already happened. He felt shame (he didn’t get the gauntlet off in time) and regret (he should have been stronger, faster, _better_ ). He felt anger. He felt fear – terror, even – and indescribable sorrow. He felt a lot of things, floating through the vast emptiness of space with no chance of rescue.

Now it seemed the vast emptiness that once surrounded Peter had decided to work its way inside, to make a permanent home of his soul.

Now he felt absolutely nothing at all.

* * *

A lot had changed over the past few days, but one thing remained the same: Peter was still very, very cold.

“That’s because you’re underweight,” Doctor Banner had explained patiently as he extracted Peter’s hand from beneath five layers of blankets to check his blood sugar, and consequently frowned at the readings. “It doesn’t help that spiders can’t thermoregulate. Once you gain some weight, you should start warming up.”

_Once you gain some weight._

And therein lied the problem.

Theoretically, according to the metabolic research Doctor Banner had done on him, gaining weight should not have been impossible. Difficult and tiresome, yes, but not impossible. Banner had even created an entire nutritional plan and weight-gain schedule specific to Peter and his unique situation, intent on stuffing him to the brim every day with calorific meals, supplement shakes, and homemade, thousand-calorie protein bars.

And, yet, a week after returning to Earth, Peter weighed a pound and a half less than he had when Steve first carried him into the medical bay.

The problem was not Banner’s course of treatment – he knew what he was doing.

The problem was, inarguably, Peter.

The food – the textures, the smells, the weight of it in his stomach, the utterly foreign sensation of _not_ being hungry – it was all too much. He ate, and his heartrate picked up and his skin grew clammy and his breathing got harsh, and before he knew it, he was leaning over the side of the bed to vomit into a trashcan, usually with uninvited hands on his back trying (and failing) to soothe him.

He would have apologized to Doctor Banner for all the medical frustration he was causing, except that he couldn’t really find it in himself to care. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that they _did_ , couldn’t fathom why Banner was trying so hard to up his weight, why Tony and/or Pepper always sat by his bedside and made small talk in gentle, calm tones while he ate. Peter couldn’t. He just _couldn’t._

Why didn’t they understand that none of it mattered anymore?

* * *

After choking down a quarter of his lunch but before throwing up his dinner, in between Banner offering him anti-nausea meds and threatening him with the feeding tube, Peter lay on his back beneath a blanket mountain and tapped one finger rhythmically against his wrist, eyes locked blank on the ceiling above. He replayed this memory over and over and over again:

_I’m not going anywhere, Peter._

May’s voice, honey-sweet. The scent of her favorite perfume, light and floral, wrapped like a shield around him, protecting him from his own emotions as she pulled him into her arms.

 _Everyone leaves,_ he’d choked out between sobs mere hours after Ben’s funeral, rented suit jacket unbuttoned and tie askew _. Everyone leaves. Oh God. Aunt May, please – please don’t leave me._

_I’m not going anywhere, Peter._

Her voice still sounded like honey where he’d ensnared the memory, frozen exactly as it had been, but now the sweetness was cloying, sickening. Now he knew better.

_I’m not going anywhere._

Liar.

* * *

In the dark of night, the door cracked open, and so did Peter’s eyes.

“Sorry.” Tony’s familiar voice, hushed and uncharacteristically hesitant, echoed through the medical bay. “Did I wake you?”

“No,” Peter lied.

His eyes began to adjust to the darkness as Tony entered fully into the room, and he could see just well enough to know his mentor looked like shit. He’d definitely lost weight, too (though not as substantial an amount as Peter). He looked like he’d aged fifteen years in a week.

Peter averted his eyes back toward the ceiling as Tony settled on the edge of his bed with a sigh.

“Can’t sleep?” Tony asked.

Peter shrugged. He opened his mouth with the intention of speaking, but no words came forth. That, as it turned out, was okay. Tony was more than willing to talk enough for the both of them.

“Well, I can’t,” he continued. “I feel like a selfish piece of shit, sleeping on a ten thousand dollar mattress while you’re stuck down here in Brucey-Boy’s lair. Thought I’d come and keep you company for a while. If – you know, if you _want_ me to. If not, just say and the word and I’ll scram, yeah?”

Peter shrugged again. “You can stay.”

“In that case…”

Tony swung his legs onto the bed and leaned back against the headboard, his elbow brushing Peter’s hair. They lapsed into a silence that Peter hoped Tony thought of as comfortable.

Nothing felt comfortable to him anymore. Nothing felt like anything. He briefly wondered if that would ever change, but soon abandoned the thought.

It wouldn’t. He was okay with that. None of it mattered anymore.

“I’m just not tired,” Peter lied (again). He was desperately tired. The nightmares just weren’t worth it.

Tony hummed in acknowledgment. “That’s because you’re stuck lying in this bed all day. You can explore the Compound and stuff once you gain some weight.”

There it was again. _Once you gain some weight._ The rage that statement evoked was entirely irrational, but knowing that didn’t stop Peter from feeling it.

But, hey – this was an emotion, right? Baby steps.

“I’m trying,” Peter snapped, the sting of snake fangs meeting heel, and he felt more than saw Tony’s wince. “I’m _trying_.”

“I know you are.”

The deliberate calm in Tony’s voice poked a hole in Peter’s anger. His shoulders deflated.

“Sorry.” He didn’t _feel_ all that sorry, and he was sure it showed on his face. Tony accepted it anyway.

“Don’t worry about it. Anyone in your situation…”

He trailed off with an awkward shake of his head. Peter knew exactly what eggshells he was tip-toeing around.

Anyone stuck in a medical bed for the foreseeable future. Anyone experiencing the hell that was refeeding syndrome. Anyone as sick as he was.

Anyone with a dead aunt.

Anyone with no living family left.

Anyone who kept losing and losing and losing people and wars and weight and was so so _so fucking sick_ of losing.

What Peter wanted to say was, _you should leave me now, before this everyone-I-love-dies thing catches up to you, oh God please just leave me please don’t die._ What Peter said was, “Yeah.”

“How did dinner go tonight? Did you keep it down?”

Pepper had been on Creepily Watch Peter Eat duty while Tony attended some sort of top-secret Avengers meeting (which Peter was forbidden from knowing the details of until Doctor Banner was happy with his progress).

“Most of it,” he said, which would eventually come back around to bite him on the ass once Tony found out it wasn’t true at all, but he wasn’t in the mood to shoulder yet another person’s disappointment in him. “It’s just, like. A lot of food. You know?”

Tony said, “I know, bud.”

Peter was fairly certain he had no idea, but he only nodded. “It’s…yeah. It’s just – hard.”

Tony was silent for a long moment, breath held tight in his lungs, until he said in one quick gust of uncoiled air: “Do you want to talk about May?”

Peter flinched violently. “Wh – _no._ Why would – I’m _not_ …”

Something sharp and excruciating exploded in the center of his chest, and he took a few deep, harsh breaths. He’d been trying so hard not to think about it, to think about all the people who’d been vanished and mourn them as a whole rather than specifically _her_ –

Tony raised his hands in surrender. “Whoa – hey. That’s fine, Pete, you don’t have to. I just want to make sure I’m not, like, emotionally neglecting you or whatever, cause that’d make me a pretty terrible legal guardian, so –“

Right when Peter thought he’d regained his breath, it was knocked out of him again. “Legal – _what?_ ”

For the first time since Tony had entered the room, Peter made eye contact with him, albeit unintentionally and out of pure shock. Something like uncertainty – insecurity, maybe, or fear of rejection – flickered across Tony’s face. He cleared his throat.

“Yeah. I, uh – reported us both as unvanished, but they wanted to put you into the foster system, since – you know. Pepper and I applied for custody. You don’t…you don’t mind, do you?”

“They let _you_ have a kid, just like that?” Peter asked evasively and half-jokingly. It had the intended effect: Tony smiled, momentarily distracted.

“I think they trust Pep, not so much me,” he said, then sobered. “They’re pretty swamped right now. Something tells me their standards are a hell of a lot lower than, you know, _before_. It was way damn easier than acquiring a child theoretically should be.”

Of course it was. Because there were a lot of sudden orphans, and not a lot of people in any position to take them. Peter suddenly felt selfish, a sixteen year old moping over the loss of someone he technically hadn’t even been related to while all over the world, ten year olds and six year olds and, God, _babies_ had been left alone and entirely defenseless.

Tony and Pepper should have taken in one of them instead. Why did they pick him? They shouldn’t have. What a stupid, _stupid_ choice.

“Pete?” Tony nudged his shoulder, voice tight with anxiety. “Talk to me, kiddo. What are you thinking?”

What was he thinking?

That he was selfish. That he was greedy. That he was a waste of space, a waste of resources, a waste of their love. That he was stupid, useless. That _they_ were stupid. That they could have chosen a small, innocent toddler in need of protection and brimming with potential, and instead they’d chosen a sick teenager who did nothing but snap and sleep and puke. That he –

“That I want to die.”

That. He was thinking, essentially, that.

He hadn’t realized he could feel Tony breathing where his arm was pressed against the man’s side until it stopped. Peter lay there, frozen and unfeeling, and waited.

After almost thirty seconds, Tony finally exhaled, shaky and slow, as if it was a painful feat. “You don’t mean that.”

His whisper was somehow deafening enough to shatter the fragile quiet of midnight in a way their louder, surface-level conversation never could have.

Peter stayed silent. As his eyelids grew heavy, he leaned his head against Tony’s arm, more for the older man’s comfort than his own.

It was uncomfortable to fall asleep with Tony’s arm wrapped as tight as it was around his shoulders. Peter slept anyway.

* * *

He woke to a sound that was, much to his chagrin, becoming familiar: people talking about him.

Light warmed his eyelids, but he kept them closed and nuzzled deeper into his pillow as Tony hissed, “This is ‘what he needs’? Being stuck in bed all day and stuffed until he vomits? You have _no idea_ what he needs.”

Peter was uncertain exactly what this little whisper-fight was about, but he was already on Tony’s side.

“And, yet, you’re trusting me to treat him.” Doctor Banner, calm and reasonable as ever.

“Tony, relax. I’m sure we can find some common ground here.” Pepper, perpetually exasperated as she tugged at Tony’s metaphorical leash.

“You know, I’m actually having a lot of trouble relaxing while my kid’s suffering to the point of wishing for the sweet release of death? Go figure, right?”

That one stung a little. For Tony’s sake, Peter hoped he would come to his senses soon, realize the person he actively defended was nowhere near deserving of his loyalty.

“I know you’re scared,” Banner said, “but you need to trust that I –“

“Scared? Not scared, actually, more like royally pissed, but –“

“You need to trust my medical judgment, Tony. If you can’t, then I don’t know how you expect me to successfully treat Peter.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t trust you to ‘successfully’ treat him, considering _he’s still fucking losing weight_ –“

“No treatment is effective without the patient’s compliance.”

In the pocket of silence that followed, the air itself felt heavy, difficult to inhale. It took everything Peter had to keep up his façade of sleep, to not flinch away from Banner finally uttering aloud his suspicion that Peter was intentionally defying his treatment plan.

He _was_ , in a way, but he also wasn’t – and in the way that he was, they were probably way off the mark as to why.

He wasn’t defying treatment in that his difficulty keeping things down was falsified. It wasn’t. The nausea and the cramps and the vomiting were all too real.

He _was,_ however, defying treatment in that he wasn’t trying nearly as hard as he should have. And it wasn’t because he wanted to die (though he did), wasn’t a slow form of suicide or whatever else Tony thought.

It was more that the effort just…wasn’t worth it.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Whether he ate or not, whether he gained weight or maintained it or lost it. It was all the same to him. To both health and sickness, Peter felt completely indifferent.

Pepper was the one to break the tense quiet. “Have _either_ of you considered that maybe the reason he’s not complying is because he’s stuck in a white box full of antiseptic and needles?”

The shuffling of two pairs of feet. The clearing of a throat. Banner asked, “What do you mean?”

Peter could practically hear Pepper rolling her eyes.

“I _mean,_ maybe he might find it easier to eat if he was in a more comfortable environment.”

“Wow,” Tony said. “Somebody other than me had an idea and it doesn’t totally suck. That’s a first.”

Banner ignored him. “Or he might find it easier to purge his food behind closed doors.”

That word set Peter’s very blood alight with anger. _Purge_. As if it was intentional. As if he was choosing to be sick.

“It’s gonna be hard for him to blow chunks without me knowing. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have, like, a thousand AIs, and they’re all total creepers. Recording us right now, in fact. Say hi to my offshore storage servers.”

“My point being,” Pepper continued firmly, “that Peter is going through a lot medically, coping with the same half-of-the-universe shit that we are, _and_ trying to grieve a parental figure. If you had to do all that at sixteen and you couldn’t leave the medical bay, or even your _bed_ – you’d be getting pretty sick of life, too.”

That wasn’t it at all – even he wasn’t sure exactly what the problem was – but Peter was still touched by her genuine effort to understand him. He and Pepper had never been close, never really spent more than few minutes at a time in the same room. Something about the fierce, maternal protectiveness in her voice warmed his always-cold body from the inside out (and also stung like salt in a paper cut because, God, she sounded just like _her_ ).

“What are you suggesting?” Banner asked. “That we let him leave medical and roam the Compound freely in his state?”

Pepper said, simply and with confidence, “I’m suggesting we let him leave the Compound.”

Peter’s heart skipped a beat or two. How was he supposed to feel about that? Wasn’t she essentially just suggesting that they set him free into the world to get him out of their hair? He couldn’t blame her in the slightest, and he certainly wouldn’t hold it against them if they decided to go through with her plan.

But _damn_ , did it hurt.

Peter could imagine the confused looks the two men must have been giving Pepper, because she explained herself in an exasperated tone: “ _With_ us, of course. Tony and I are his legal guardians now. We could find a house somewhere, something secluded. A place for Peter to recover and grieve without feeling like everyone is always breathing down his neck.”

“I…don’t know about that,” Bruce said.

Tony cleared his throat. “Yeah, I gotta go with Broccoli Top on this one, babe. Bringing a superenhanced, suicidal teenager out into the middle of nowhere is a little no bueno, if you catch my drift.”

“I thought your AIs were always watching?”

“Um, hi, have you _met_ Peter Parker? He reprogrammed his first suit in a hotel room with a screwdriver and a laptop while he was on a field trip - _and he didn’t even tell me he was going on the field trip_. If he’s gonna try and yeet himself off the face of the planet, I’m sure as hell not going to make it easier for him.”

“’Yeet’?”

“It’s in the dictionary, look it up.”

And the word ‘yeet’ coming unironically out of Tony Stark’s mouth had to be Peter’s cue to enter the chat.

He feigned waking up, inhaling deeply and stirring beneath his pile of blankets. The room grew deathly silent. When he opened his eyes, it was to the sight of all three adults staring at him.

“You heard everything we just said, didn’t you?” Tony asked.

Peter blinked. “Yes.”

What was the point of lying? They would find out soon enough, if he planned on throwing his two cents into the conversation (and he did).

“I’m sorry, Peter.” Banner shifted his weight and glanced awkwardly between the other two. “We didn’t mean for you to –“

–to listen to them decide his fate without consulting him, like his opinions regarding his own life were irrelevant? To hear the only living authority figures he had left casually discuss what he would or wouldn’t want, what he did or did not need, while he lay right in front of them, perfectly capable of speaking for himself?

“–it’s fine,” Peter said. “So, do I – do I get a say?”

Tony said without skipping a beat, not so much as a glance given as consultation to the actual doctor, “Of course you do. Your choice. What’ll help you, Pete?”

Well, that was a no-brainer. Peter took a deep breath, glancing apprehensively at Pepper and Doctor Banner’s uncertain expressions.

“I…I want to go home. With you guys. If that’s okay.”

Tony gave him one firm nod of confirmation and clapped his hands together loudly. “Alright. The Spiderling has spoken. Brucey, you can pack up those…delicious…bars and shakes to go, right? Pep, you might want to get on Zillow and start digging – at least three bedrooms, Peter Pan and I will need a lab, and I wouldn’t say no to a pool…”

As Tony rambled, Pepper shot Peter a sympathetic look, like she thought he might have felt sad. Peter curled tighter beneath his layered covers.

All he felt was cold.


End file.
